In an unsurprising move, Apple has rebranded its developer program and portal for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch as the iOS Dev Center. The change from its previous "iPhone Dev Center" name follows a similar shift in the name of the device...

With multitasking, shared files, and wireless printing, Apple's 4.2 iOS upgrades iPad for business use.



Apple - IPad - IPhone - IOS - Steve Jobs

There was a time when Skyfire on Windows Mobile meant full Flash all the time. The 2.0 version on Android reigned that in a bit, really only supporting Flash video and little else, something Android 2.2 users no longer need to worry about. iOS users, however, do still spend their days ruing websites with such content, and so that's the market Skyfire is targeting next. The company has submitted a version of the browser for App Store approval, transcoding Flash video such that the phone only sees HTML5, with content coming in over H.264 adaptive streaming. As such, video is said to be compressed an average of 75 percent, in theory allaying any concerns about this thing being a bandwidth hog. In other words: there's no reason for this to not be approved, right? Right! However, something tells us things may not be so easy...

Continue reading Skyfire submits iPhone browser for App Store approval, we wait for the Flash to hit the fan

Skyfire submits iPhone browser for App Store approval, we wait for the Flash to hit the fan originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

iOS 4.1 adds an HDR (high dynamic range) option to the iPhone's built-in Camera app. The results are subtly improved and realistic looking photos.

Aliens have taken over the center of your screen and are intent on destroying Earth. Using your square, tennis-like paddles, you and a partner (the game is multiplayer only) must work together to deflect any missiles the aliens throw at our homeworld.

If you are tired of trying to keep up with Apple’s new iPod releases, upgrade your old iPod for free with Rockbox. Rockbox allows you to upgrade your aging iPod with new themes, fonts, games, and more.

Rockbox is a replacement firmware for the iPod, iriver, Cowon, and many other devices. What the firmware does is extends the functionality and features of your current digital music player.

Installing Rockbox

The first thing to do is download the Rockbox utility from their website.

Rockbox provides prebuilt binaries for Windows, OS X, and Linux so just download the one you need and run the program. The first time the software loads you will need to plug in your iPod and autodetect the model. If you know the model you can also browse to a mounted drive and then just select your model from the provided list.

Note: You may need administrative rights on the computer you are running the utility from to write to USB devices.

Installation is a one click affair. Simply click the complete installation button and the latest files will be downloaded and installed onto your iPod.

Note: The installation will not erase all of the music and pictures you have on your device. If everything works the way it should, it will simply replace the bootloader and add its own OS files where needed.

Once Rockbox is installed you can install any optional playback themes from the built in theme installer.

Or you can also install fonts or games from the Rockbox utility.

Using Rockbox

Once everything is installed, disconnect your iPod and reboot it. It should automatically load Rockbox. Usability of the iPod should be fairly the same with one of the big differences is now you will have some more utilities and menus. You can browse for pictures and music from the files browser or if you have your music tagged you can also use the database browser.

You can change the theme to one of the ones you installed by going to system -> themes and selecting the theme you want. The menu should change automatically and you will also notice the new theme during playback.

Some of the extra utilites are found under the plugins menu. If you go into that menu you will find any additional software and games you installed.

Of course, the option to play Doom is there if you installed the games option in Rockbox utility, and have a supported device. You will have to figure out how to actually control playing on your own.

Uninstalling Rockbox

If you want to switch back to the default OS that came with your iPod you can hold the menu+select button (menu+play on some devices) to hard reset the iPod. Once the iPod starts to boot again turn on the hold switch and the original OS will load.

If you actually want to remove Rockbox completely then you can go back to the Rockbox utility and just click uninstall.

So next time you are tempted to throw out your perfectly working old iPod because Apple told you it would be a good idea, try out Rockbox. It may have the missing apps you were looking for.

Rockbox homepage

Similar Articles	Productive Geek Tips
Upgrade Ubuntu from Breezy to Dapper Why Wait? Amazing New Add-on Turns Your iPhone into an iPad! [Comic] How to use Amarok to manage your iPod Upgrading Ubuntu from Dapper to Edgy with Update Manager Upgrading Ubuntu From Edgy to Feisty (6.10 to 7.04)	How to Avoid Computer Eye Strain and Keep Your Eyes Healthy Three Potentially Risky Ways to Save a Lot on Textbooks Using Microsoft Word 2010’s References Feature (for Students) Optimize Your Computer Screen Real Estate Regular Financial Monitoring Leads to Less Overspending How to Use Voicemail Effectively at Work

Continue reading Mercedes-Benz updates mbrace app with fancy pants 'Concierge' service

Mercedes-Benz updates mbrace app with fancy pants 'Concierge' service originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  iTunes  | Email this | Comments

Would you like to make your blog look great on all devices, not just computers?  Smartphones and other mobile devices are increasing in popularity, so here’s how you can make sure your blog looks great no matter what people are reading it on.

WordPress is a great tool for creating a blog or traditional website for your business, organization, or simply to share pictures with family and friends.  You can make a free blog on WordPress.com, and if so, your blog will already be ready for most modern mobile device browsers.  Here’s our test WordPress.com site in Mobile Safari; WordPress.com automatically gave it an iOS style theme that’s easy to use on mobile devices.

However, if you want to tweak WordPress and make your site just like you want, you’ll need to use the Self-hosted WordPress.org.  If you’ve created a new WordPress site on your own server or hosting service manually or using an auto-installer such as Softaculous, you may be disappointed that your site looks the same on mobile browsers as it does on your computer.  This makes it difficult to use on small screens.

Thankfully, you can easily get the same iOS style theme on your blog for free with the WPtouch plugin.  Login to your WordPress Dashboard, and select Add New under Plugins on the left side menu.

On this page, enter WPtouch in the search box.

Now install and activate the plugin as normal.

Your site will now have a nice theme that works great on modern smartphones and other mobile devices, but will still show your own normal theme to visitors using computers.  If you’d like to preview how your new mobile theme looks on an iPhone, check out our article on Testing Mobile Websites in Safari for Windows.

Tweak WPtouch Settings

WPtouch works fine without any tweaking on most sites, but if you’d like, you can customize your mobile site and tweak WPtouch’s settings to get it working just like you want.  To do this, click WPtouch under Settings on the left menu.

Here you can tweak many settings, including the mobile theme’s background, fonts, icon, and more.

You can also add Google Analytics and Adsense to your mobile site, so you can monetize your traffic and know how many visitors you’re getting.  If you need to find you Google Analytics code, here’s how you can quickly find it.

You may need to tweak settings in other WordPress plugins, including WP Cache and W3 Cache, to make them work with WPtouch, so be sure to check the list at the bottom of the settings page.

Here’s Techinch.com with a customized logo, menu, and background using WPtouch.  Now your site looks just like you want, on PCs and mobile devices.

Similar Articles	Productive Geek Tips
Protecting Your WordPress Admin Panel From Hackers With .htaccess Add Your Own Domain to Your WordPress.com Blog Add Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress Blog Make a Backup Copy of your Production Wordpress Blog on Ubuntu How-To Geek Software	Three Potentially Risky Ways to Save a Lot on Textbooks Using Microsoft Word 2010’s References Feature (for Students) Optimize Your Computer Screen Real Estate Regular Financial Monitoring Leads to Less Overspending How to Use Voicemail Effectively at Work How to Create a Family Friendly Ubuntu Setup

Withings, the Paris-based company behind the famous tweeting wifi body scale, has just scored 3 million euros from French VC firm, Ventech. It's the company's first round of funding and will be used primarily for the development of 2 new products, which should come out within the next 6 months. For anyone who isn't already familiar with the company's first product, the tweeting wifi body scale, it's a terrific wifi-connected device that tracks your weight. May sound simple but it can recognize up to 8 users and allows you to transfer your weight information to a computer, iPhone or iPad - which is where the Tweeting comes from, obviously. The product launched officially last year on June 25 goes for €129 in France and is a great little way to track a fitness program or diet.

Apple has released a new iPod touch that has all the great features of the iPhone 4 (minus cell), and along with any new iPod release comes a new commercial. The newest iPod touch commercial is called “All kinds of fun” and it shows the iPod touch shooting video, in FaceTime calls, and using other [...]

In what amounts to yet another co-branding marketing kerfuffle, Philips and O'Neill have teamed up on a foursome of so-called durable headphones. The Stretch headphones (pictured) are the toughest of the bunch, constructed from an ultra-durable, temperature-resistant, and awesome-sounding material called TR 55LX that boasts a surface hardness six times greater than the polycarbonate stuff found in most headphones. The Snug series boasts "bold graphics" and can fold flat, while the in-ear Covert buds brings an iPhone controller. Last, and apparently least, is the "stylish" Specked with tangle free cord. Amazing. All are said to have been tested by the "toughest O'Neill team riders." As proof, O'Neill is trotting out Jeremy Jones, Mark Mathews, and Ane Enderud to promote its new gear, presumably because they want to and not because they are contractually obligated under the terms of their respective high-paying sponsorships. Needless to say, these headphones aren't for you if you don't know who these people are or you lack the fragile hipster ego required to wear them. No prices were announced, but you can expect them to match the "premium" description when these arrive for retail in Europe and the US sometime this month.

We did give Stretch a go for a quickie ears-on, and honestly, while the cloth cord was a nice touch and they do seem to be super rugged, we'd prefer that the team paid a bit more attention to the sound quality than the finish.

Continue reading Philips and O'Neill launch durable headphones -- shaka bra!

Philips and O'Neill launch durable headphones -- shaka bra! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Philips  | Email this | Comments

Are you addicted to Twitter? Do you have an iPad? Even if the answer to both is no right now, after you see Twitter for iPad, those answers are going to change quickly. Yes, the wait is over. Launching tonight in the App Store is Twitter for iPad the first official native iPad app from the company. We all knew it was coming (Twitter even said so a few months ago), but it has been a long wait. It was definitely worth it. Like most people, I wander into hyperbole from time to time. But it has now been a few days since I first played with Twitter for iPad, and I still think it is hands-down the best iPad app out there. Its that good. With all due respect to Reeder, Instapaper, Flipboard, and Pulse, this is now going to be my go-to app for just about everything related to reading news. Its simply such a great experience for reading tweets and more importantly, reading the links your friends share. What Twitter (and developer Loren Brichter specifically) has done is create an amazing user experience for reading information. This is thanks to an intuitive user interface that layers on top of itself. So, for example, if I click on a link in my tweet stream, Ill have a new layer that rolls over to show that webpage in a customized browser window. If youve used Flipboard, its somewhat similar, but better because its much easier to go back to where ever you previously were before you clicked the link. You simply swipe something to the side to move it temporarily or swipe it again to get it off the screen (in portrait mode anyway, where theres less space). Something else thats awesome: when you highlight a tweet by clicking on it, its now pinned to the top or bottom of the screen as you scroll through your stream. This is great if its something you want to reference. A lot of thought has been put into these type of saving state actions within this app. Its simple to save a draft and go back to it, for example (much easier than with Twitter for iPhone). Or to reference one of these pinned tweets in your own tweet. There are also some great new gestures that Twitter came up with for this app. For example, if you pinch-outward on a tweet, it will unfold to show you more information about the Twitter user. Better may be the way you can swipe down with two fingers on any tweet to see a full conversation in context. Its the little things like this that make the app great Apple-like, even. Overall, the app looks and feels quite a bit different from Twitter for iPhone (which Twitter built from Tweetie Brichters client that they acquired earlier this year). But Twitters Leland Rechis assures me its using all the same stuff on the backend. In fact, Twitter is now a universal app meaning its one app that will work on both the iPhone and iPad, it will just look different depending on which device youre using it on. Rechis also says Twitter started experimenting with some newer things on the iPad version that havent yet been brought to the iPhone version, butundoubtedlywill. A great example here is that when you click through to a users profile page, youll see at the bottom a list of users similar to that user that you may like to follow. Rechis also notes the importance of the logged-out view something Twitter worked on before the iPhone version launch. Twitter wants to make the service as useful as possible to people even if they dont have an account. The idea, of course, is that theyll hopefully sign up for one and this app may give them the most reason to yet. When logged out, youll be able to see tweet streams based on hot topics. Tweets in general are not just what Im doing, they have an incredible amount of metadata, Rechis says speaking to why they created this layering idea for the app. Almost 25 percent of all tweets now have a link in them, he says. This app is perfect for those tweets, and content consumption and exploration in general. Rechis notes that one of his favorite things about tablets is how they eliminate window management. At the same time, you need some way to manage all this information. He notes that Brichters original concept was stacks of sheets of paper that you quickly shuffle through. Other members of Twitter including Rechis refined that idea and the end result is Twitter for iPad. Thats 750 words about the app but you really just need to see it, and use it. It will definitely be my go-to way to browse Twitter from now on. Its that good.

Sure, they said it would be available immediately, but they lied. Now, the lie has become the truth, and the truth is just a fleeting dream, caught in between worlds we can't hope to understand, let alone grasp. Meaning: go download iTunes 10 with Ping.

Update: We've added direct download links below. Thanks commenters!

Update 2: A word of warning -- if you activate Ping, it will potentially make all of the nasty reviews you've written available for the world to see. So now they'll know who panned their recording debut and ruined their career.

Update 3: Got an iPhone? Ping may have magically appeared in your iTunes app, ready to help you wax introspective on the go. [Thanks, Kruze]

iTunes 10 (with Ping) mercifully becomes available for download (update: iOS 4 has Ping, too) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink iLounge  |  Apple  | Email this | Comments

#apple Friends lists, matchmaking, and a unified multiplayer gaming experience come to the iPhone in next week with the release of Apple's Game Center in iOS 4.1. More

It's no secret that Twitter for iPhone (née Tweetie) is often regarded as the gold standard for mobile apps -- it blends functionality, performance, and usability together with a dash of playful quirkiness that works so well Twitter just bought the app and hired developer Loren Brichter in back in April. That delayed the release of an iPad version, but Twitter's finally come through -- and as you'd expect, Twitter for iPad does things just as uniquely as its sister apps on the iPhone and Mac. In fact, we'd go so far as to say a few of its interface conventions will become as commonplace as slide-to-refresh, which was first introduced in Tweetie for iPhone -- but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Read on for more!

Continue reading Twitter for iPad review

Twitter for iPad review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

#recap .recap_visual { margin:0 !important; } .archive_results { display:none !important; }

All About Apple

• Live from Apple's fall 2010 event
• Apple TV (2010) first look / hands-on
• iPod touch (2010) first hands-on (update: video!)
• iPod nano (2010) first hands-on (update: video!)
• iPod shuffle (2010) first hands-on
• Apple TV vs. the competition -- how does it stack up?
• iPod nano vs touch vs shuffle... fight!
• Apple demoes iOS 4.2, features AirPlay media streaming

IFA 2010

• Live from Sony's IFA 2010 press event
• Sony announces Bloggie Touch pocket video camera
• Philips GoGear Connect hands-on

Other news of Import

• Amazon streaming 99-cent ABC and Fox shows... right now (update: purchases, not rentals!)
• PlayStation Move review
• Sony slims down, speeds up, and adds touch to its entire Reader family
• HP unleashes Envy 17 3D, HP Envy 14 Beats edition and specially-cooled Pavilion dm3
• HP Wireless TV Connect streams 1080p video, hits Intel WiDi where it hurts

The daily roundup: here's what you might've missed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

In the debate between the old version of Digg and the new Digg, the readers have spoken.Last week, Digg launched version 4.0 of the popular social news website. Its been a rocky road pre-launch, so why would it be any different post-launch?Since the launch of the New Digg, which introduced the ability to follow friends, a faster architecture and personalized news, users have been in revolt, mostly over the types of stories reaching the front page. Digg has since addressed some of these issues, but the debate rages on.Last week we asked you, the Mashable readers, for your opinion on Digg. Which did you prefer: The new digg or the old one?The old version of Digg was clearly your choice. With a full 78% of the vote (4,808 votes), the classic version bested the new versions 12% (747 votes). Four percent of you (230 votes) said it was a tie, while 6% of you (348 votes) said you werent a fan of Digg.In the comments, the debate surrounded features that were available in the old version that werent in the new one, including the ability to bury stories and the ability to check upcoming stories. Many of you were also quick to point out that the new Digg is designed to broaden the appeal of the social news website, rather than limit it to its current niche of tech-savvy users.Were going to revisit this debate in the future, when weve had time to reflect on the changes happening at Digg. In the meantime though, we want to hear your thoughts on this debate in the comments. New Digg vs. Old Digg: Which one do you prefer?online surveys Follow Mashable on DiggReviews: Digg, MashableMore About: digg, New Digg, poll, web faceoffFor more Battles coverage:Follow Mashable Battles on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Battles channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad

If you're anything like me, you've been hitting refresh on the Apple iTunes website waiting for them to put iTunes 10 up for download. Sure, it has said it was available since this morning, but when you click through, it would still be iTunes 9.2.1 with a promise that iTunes 10 was "coming soon." Links being shared on Twitter were likewise bogus. It was starting to look like a Duke Nukem situation. Well, it took several hours, but it's finally here. Apple announced iTunes 10 this morning at their event in San Francisco. The latest version is more than just a minor update, there are several things that have been reworks, including some UI elements. But the biggest addition is obviously Ping, the music social network Apple has baked into iTunes. I got a chance to use it earlier on some demo computers and on the iPhone/iPod touch -- it's very interesting. Now it's time to see if 160 million built-in users agree.

SkyFire has announced that its self-titled browser has been submitted to Apple for approval on the App Store. The browser brings indirect support for a wide range of Flash content, working around Apple's prohibition of Adobe's multimedia platform on iOS devices....


Skyfire - App Store - IPhone - Apple - Flash

Comparing technical specification of the most recent generation of iPods with their most recent predecessors show big improvements - not to mention better design aesthetics.



IPod - Apple - IPod Touch - IPhone - Specification